1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to tracking camera devices, and more particularly to a tracking camera device adapted to track an object that is imaged by a camera and captured at a detecting area thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is one example of a tracking camera device to track an object that is imaged by a camera and captured within an detecting area, proposed in Japanese Patent Application No. H6-267347 applied for patent on Oct. 31, 1994. This technology involves a process of detecting a detecting block to be considered the same in color as a particular detecting block among a plurality of detecting blocks set within a motion vector detecting area. A motion vector for the object is estimated depending upon a weight center of the same-colored detecting block, thereby tracking the object according to the motion vector.
In such prior art, however, even where the object is finely moving within the motion vector detecting area, the camera will track the object in response to the movement thereof, resulting in a problem that the camera is placed unstable in position.
The present invention is, in a tracking camera device for tracking an object that is imaged by a camera and captured within a movement detecting area, the tracking camera device comprising: the movement detecting area including a plurality of detecting areas; each of the detecting areas including a plurality of detecting blocks; an integrating means for integrating pixel data for each of the detecting blocks; a first determining means for determining a plurality of detecting blocks corresponding to the object based on a result of integration; a second determining means for determining a first detecting area including the most of the first detecting blocks; and a control means for controlling a position of the camera to a direction of the first detecting area.
Accordingly, the integrating means integrates, for example, chrominance-related data for each detecting block included in the movement detecting area. Based on a result of the integration, the first determining means determines a plurality of first detecting blocks corresponding to an object. That is, the first determining means, for example, calculates a correlation value of the integration result to a previously-registered reference value, and compares the correlation value with a threshold to determine a first detecting block according to a result of the comparison. The second determining means then determines a first detecting area that contains the most first detecting blocks. The control means, in turn, controls the camera to a direction of the first detecting area.
Therefore, according to this invention, since the camera position is controlled to a direction of a first detecting area containing the most first detecting blocks, it is possible to stabilize the camera position when an object is finely moving or so.